Lahore suicide bomber identified

By

GEO NEWS

Tuesday Mar 29, 2016

LAHORE: Investigation for the Lahore Attack took a new turn as police said that the identity card found from the location of the blast did not belong to the suicide bomber. Instead, they suspect Salahuddin Khorasani, a member of a banned outfit, carried out the suicide bombing.

Initial investigation of the blast at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park, which killed 72 on Sunday, had led the police to believe that a man named Muhammad Yousuf from Muzafargarh, whose identity card was found at the crime scene, was the suicide bomber. Law enforcers had arrested three of his brothers and raided a seminary where he was a teacher.

On Tuesday, it was revealed that the bomber was in fact Salahuddin Khurasani from the Jamat ul Ahrar group, a breakaway faction of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) terrorist organisation.

With the help of eye witnesses, police sketched a picture of the suicide bomber. Salahuddin Khurasani has an olive complexion, a large nose, a short beard, and thick hair. He is beleived to be between the age of 20 to 25 years.

The paramilitary has launched a crackdown against terrorists in Punjab after the deadly bombing, . According to a press statement by DG ISPR Lt-Gen Asim Saleem Bajwa, intelligence agencies with Army and Rangers carried out five operations in Lahore, Faisalabad, and Multan since the attack in the busy Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in the Punjab capital.

Sources confirmed that the anti-terror crackdown was launched on the orders of the Army chief and will commence with operations in southern Punjab, long believed to be a hotbed of religious extremism and militancy.

The sources added that troops from the Army and Rangers will take part in the crackdown, and that the military’s Corps Commander in Lahore will be regularly apprised of the progress of the operation.

In an address to the nation late on Monday, the Prime Minister vowed to bring justice for the victims of the blast. “Terrorists should know failure is their fate,” he said.